Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Hello! My name is Belinda Spencer and I have been scrapping
since 2003. I live on a farm in the Adelaide Hills with my husband, two
children and a multitude of animals.

I am predominantly a 12” x 12” scrapper but also love to
create cards, artist trading cards and the odd mini album and off the page
project.

My style tends to include elements of shabby chic, fussy
cutting and a touch of grunge, spooky elements and sometimes a swear word or
two. I love to include texture and dimension with lots of lovely layers. My
favourite technique right now is to create a watercolour effect on my
backgrounds using various mists. I would be lost without my Canson white
cardstock, craft knife and inks!

I have been published in Scrapbook Creations, Scrapbooking
Memories and Somerset Memories magazines.

I am currently a Design Team member at The Scrapbook Store,
Kraft Plus Challenges, Darkroom Door, Charms Creations, Imaginarium Designs and
Seriously Scrapbooking where I teach layout classes and card workshops.
Previous teams have included The Colour Room, Purple Pumpkin, White With One,
The Dusty Attic and Kaisercraft.

Thankyou so much for having me as a guest designer at
ARTastic. I absolutely LOVED the artwork inspiration.

Wednesday, 15 March 2017

Welcome to our mid month reveal.This month our inspiration comes to you from William Rose with An image of November.

Criteria - USE A STENCIL

And some fantastic inspiration from our second team ...

ANGELIKA

I was inspired by the blue and white colour scheme with pops of colours. The painting also reminded me of a cloud city skyline, which inspired this layout about being up in the sky. I used stencils with mists and texture paste to make the background.

KAT

The colours, lines and chaotic feel of the artwork remind me of NYC so I made a pocket page about our visit to NYC last year. I used stencils and ink to decorate the background papers and to create the title.

TONE

I was inspired by the black stripes and the, kind of, noisy background

ANNA

I have used a stencil with some black ink for those splashes. And I was inspired of the lines in the picture and used my sewing machine to create a heart of black lines. Also was inspired of the pops of color together with the b&w.

KAREN

The inspiration I have taken from this are the straight lines. I have also used a couple of stencils for this page.

KRIPA

My take for this month inspired by the checks and also tried to use the colours on the picture. The more perfect looking splats of gesso, orange and blue are made through a stencil.

JANEI knew I had to do a layout featuring either a city skyline or sailing boats as this is what I see in the gorgeous artwork. Fortunately for me I had photos which included both - sails on Sydney Harbour with the city in the background.

Now it is your turn, we'd love to see your own interpretation. You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Wednesday, 8 March 2017

I will be announcing our February winners shortly but first I would like to introduce you to our Tips, Tricks and Techniques for March brought to you by team member, Helene Bogren.

Using a stencil for doodling by Helene Bogren

As this month criteria is the use of stencils I
thought it could be a good idea to show a way to use a stencil for doodling/drawing.
You can make rough layouts or romantic layouts depending on what kind of stencils
you use. On this layout I made a drawing and colored it with colored pencils as
if it were a color book. You can also leave it as it is (only using a black
pen), color it with water color or your favourite product.

First I filled the lines with a black water
resistant pen.

I then colored it with colored pencils. I got
different shades by using different pressures.

Here are two close-ups:

And here is the final result:

On my team subnission for this month I show a more
rough way to doodle with a stencil using only a black pen. Here is a close-up of
that one:

I hope you will have a lot of fun
experimenting with this technique!

now onto our February winners ..... thank you to everyone who played along with us last month - we loved all your gorgeous work.

Our main winner for February is #4 Sue with this totally delightful page.

Our random draw winner is #6 Nicole

Congratulations ladies.

Could the winners please contact me on jjjustjane@bigpond.com with their postal details. You have until the announcement of the winners for next month to do so. Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar.

Our Creative Team highlight from last month is Angelika - your carousel page was just stunning. She will receive a little surprise something from me.

Please don't forget to enter this month's ARTastic challenge. All the details are in the left sidebar. Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry.

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Welcome to March, not only a new month but a new season and boy, have we been eager to have you join us!This month our inspiration comes to you from William Rose with An image of November. I personally love the crispness of this painting, the ordered vertical and horizontal elements just appeal to me. It could be a city skyline or boats on the ocean ... what do you see?

Australian artist William Rose was born in 1929 in the industrial suburb of Carrington, NSW. He undertook art studies at Newcastle Technical College and held his first exhibition in Newcastle in 1954 and then moved to Sydney where he furthered his artistic education.

Rose’s distinctive powerful cross-hatched grids floating over a white ground were the mainstay of his painting throughout his career. The artist’s drawings and paintings are uncompromising and controlled quests in the composition of abstract space. The artist gradually moved away from his early use of vertical and horizontal structure to his characteristic diagonally slated grids, injecting his later works with a fresh, vibrant rhythm. Rose’s abiding passion for classical music underscored his paintings as harmoniously as it resonated throughout his studio as he worked.

Throughout the early 1960s, Rose’s work was represented in significant national exhibitions and today his work is widely represented across major Australian art galleries including National Gallery Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Rose's drawings and paintings are relentless and disciplined pursuits in the composition of abstract space.

This year we are putting the ART back into ARTastic and our main prize each month will reflect that - this month featuring amazing products from Tim Holtz.

And as always a lovely prize pack for our random draw winner ...

Donated by Helene Bogren

And now some beautiful inspiration from the first of our team ...

HELENE

I used three different stencils, together with a black ink pad and a black
pen (doodling).

TRACEY

As soon as I saw this painting I knew I had the perfect stamps to recreate it as a background. I used black and grey ink to give different depth and colour burst powdered pigment to do the water colours.

JUDY

I was inspired by the straight lines and little pops of colour in the artwork.

EVELYN

I was inspired by the lines of the reference image. I glued down some paper stripes and added lines with modeling paste through a stencil. I used two other stencils and did a lot of stamping to imitate the lines from the picture.

ELAINE

Inspired by the lines of the painting, I kept my layout to mainly a vertical line. I stencilled triangles with modelling paste, used some gesso with a stencil and also did pen work stencilling.

MARIA

I used stencils, lines of paper and a little bright color, like in the picture.

TANYA

I really love all the straight lines in this piece of art work and had to use them on my layout too.

Over to you ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on March 31st, 2017. We'd love to see yournewpaper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries. Why not try doing a pocket page spread? Please no back-dated submissions.

Please note:- You may combine our challenge with a sketch challenge only - no other combining will be accepted. Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as provide a link back to us at ARTastic ... and don't forget to tell us how you were inspired by our challenge. You may enter more than once in any month as long as each submission is with a different creation. International entries are very welcome.

Please call past on the 8th for our announcement of the February winners and our ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques for March.

February random draw prize

2nd random draw prize if more than 8 entries

January inspiration is by Chris Vella called Joy.

JANUARY entries ...

January Prize

JAN second prize - if more than 8 entries

Donated by Sharon Bishop

NO WORD VERIFICATION please

Our Creative Team love to leave comments on each and every entry, so please make it easier for them to do so and remove WORD VERIFICATION for your comments. If you choose to use specialist galleries please be aware we may not be able to leave comments for you.

ARTastic is a challenge blog with a difference. We find inspiration in works of art.THE RULES - You don't need to be arty to play along with us - we accept traditional paper, digital, mixed media and off the page creations at any level. International entries are welcome. You may combine with 3 other challenges. Please include our inspirational artwork and a link back to ARTastic on your entry and tell us how you were inspired by our artwork.